Hello! This is is a 4-part online course about how to improve your WooCommerce conversion rate. We’ll publish a new lesson every day until the course is complete. By the end, you’ll have everything you need to get more sales from the same number of visitors.

And the good news? It’s disarmingly easy.

What is WooCommerce conversion rate?

Every WooCommerce website owner will be familiar with conversion rate: the percentage of users who take a desired action on a website.

While every website is different, the single most important conversion for every WooCommerce store is always going to be sales.

There could be any number of other tasks you consider conversions, including signing up to a newsletter or requesting a quote. But the primary goal is a user adding items to their cart, and clicking that ‘Buy Now’ button.

What is a ‘good’ conversion rate?

How do you know if your conversion rate is “good”? How do you know how well your store is doing versus the rest of your industry? How do you know how much you can realistically increase your conversion rate?

Here are some figures to help give you a sense of where things lie:

In Q1 2017, the average conversion rate for eCommerce sites worldwide was 2.48%.

This should be the benchmark you compare against: you want at least 2.48% of all visitors to buy from your WooCommerce site.

There are, inevitably, some caveats to be aware of. This is because a huge quantity of variables affects your conversion rate:

Tablet users convert at a much lower average of 1.25%.

Desktop users convert at a higher 3.63%.

First time purchasers will only convert at 1.60%.

Return customers will convert at 5.83%!

You get the picture: 2.48% should be your benchmark average, but there’s a reasonable range to be had either side, from just over 1% all the way up to nearly 6%.

Barriers to buying

If you’re already working hard to get people onto your WooCommerce website, it’s disheartening when all that traffic doesn’t convert into the sales you’d hoped for.

After all, even a (very high) 6% conversion rate leaves 94% of visitors do not buy. That’s a huge deal, and a huge missed opportunity!

But, with so many factors influencing your conversion rate – how can you even start to improve it?

The key is to focus on the variables you can control. Do your customers have access to all the information they need, for example? Are they able to quickly make a purchasing decision?

By making the buying process as painless as possible, you have the opportunity to positively influence your conversion rate.

Your task to increase conversion rates

With this in mind, I have a small task for you to do: take a really good look at your website and jot down any obvious barriers getting in the way of your customers buying your products.

What would you need to add to, or remove from, your WooCommerce website to make it easier for users to buy more?

If the solution is starting to sound like far too much work: don’t worry. Tomorrow, I’m going to show you how to fix your conversion rate in minutes.